


so while you're here in my arms

by verity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Multi, Poker, Stockings, Threesome - F/M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:51:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2164779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>verity:</b> man I am pretty sure the dupont nylon shortage is the grounds for a fic<br/><b>verity:</b> imagine what steve would do to get peggy some nylons<br/><b>lazulisong:</b> imagine what bucky would do to get steve nylons for peggy</p>
            </blockquote>





	so while you're here in my arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lazulisong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulisong/gifts).



> In 1941, the war with Japan cut off the United States's access to silk, necessary for parachutes and other vital supplies. In 1942, the War Department took over DuPont's nylon production for the war effort, leading to a massive shortage of stockings in the US and abroad for the rest of the rest of the war.
> 
> BLAME BLAME BLAME + thanks to Meg. thanks to Ashe & Jamtart for betaing/enabling and Pear for encouraging. <3

When Bucky steps into the tent, it takes a moment for his eyes to focus in the dim light, and another for him to figure out what he's seeing. Agent Carter's bent over the table, her eyes on the map before her, and Steve is—on the ground. Kneeling behind her. With a pen.

"After the war, I'm gonna buy you some real stockings," Steve says as he evens out the seam line running down Agent Carter's calf. Their only point of contact is the pen against Agent Carter's skin—Steve's got his other hand braced against the ground. His whole body is arched away from her, like if he gets too close he'll smear his linework or someone's virtue. "Silk stockings, if you want. I think America can spring for that."

Agent Carter stretches out her other leg behind her. "We'll need Japan, first." She sounds amused.

"I'll get you Japan," Steve says, putting his hand on her ankle. "Anything you want."

—which is when Bucky Barnes backs the hell out of that tent.

—

See, here's the thing about Steve. He thinks _silk shortage_ and wants to end the war with Japan. If Peggy'd said _nylons_ , he'd probably have vowed to win the whole war here and now, all on his lonesome, just so DuPont can get back into manufacturing them. Bucky, on the other hand, is a practical guy. He's not fighting out here to liberate Japan, or Europe, or the hosiery industry. He just needs one pair of stockings.

"It'll cost you," says Howard Stark, raising his eyebrows.

Bucky pulls a deck of cards out of his pocket. "I'll play you for 'em."

They're alone in Stark's tent, surrounded by weapons and less comprehensible machinery, and it's late; the other men of the Howling Commandos are getting ready to bunk down for the night. Not that anyone'd judge Bucky for going up against Stark for ladies hosiery in Agent Carter's name, but Stark is Stark: he's their friend, and he _knows_. "Who are these for, really?" Stark shuffles the deck, the cards fluttering between his fingers. "Captain America? Agent Carter?"

"Steve wouldn't fit," Bucky says.

"Oh, you'd be surprised by the tensile properties of nylon," Stark says. He picks up his hand of cards; his face gives nothing away.

Bucky wouldn't have asked Stark to play if he didn't think he could win. He examines his shitty hand, lazily tosses a coin in the pot. "See you five francs."

"See you some stockings," Stark says. "Winner takes all."

—

"What are these?" Steve says, turning the packets over in his hand. Stark had three pairs, loose in their plastic sleeves, no box, and a garter belt to go with them. A lot of bluffing and one royal flush, and Bucky won the pot. "What the hell?"

Bucky smacks his shoulder. "They're stockings, you idiot. For Agent Carter."

For a long moment, Steve just looks at him, mouth set in a hard line. It's times like this that Steve looks least like the grand Captain America and most like the scrawny kid Bucky's spent the better part of two decades dragging out of hopeless fights in back alleys. "What'd you do that for?"

"Someone else is going to catch you two," Bucky says. "Fixing her legs up and everything."

Steve says, "Ah." He scrutinizes the stockings like they're going to give him some answers. They're just nylons, each sheer with a nude heel and a perfect seam up the back, _Made in USA_. "You think that's all we do?"

"I don't know, Jesus." Bucky throws up his hands. "You act like you don't even know what stockings are for—"

"Peggy hasn't had any since I've known her," Steve says. "There aren't any to be _had_."

All of a sudden, the tent gets real quiet. Everybody's out for the night except for the guys on watch and the two of them in the command tent, running down the kerosene in the lamps in the middle of the Danish forest. Softly, Bucky says, "You should have asked your pal Stark."

Steve sets down the stockings on the table, and he hesitates for a moment before he puts his hand on Bucky's shoulder. "You're my pal," he says, steady, intent. "You know that."

Bucky puts his hands over Steve's. "Yeah. I know."

—

War's all hurry up and wait. The Howling Commandos play a lot of cards. Agent Carter does, too, sometimes; she plays cards with Steve, anyway, her stockinged legs crossed demurely beneath the camp tables. Bucky cleans his rifle and tries not to think too much about Agent Carter's legs or the way she nudges Steve's feet from time to time, when he's played an especially good hand or made her smile. He tries not to think about what they do in her tent at night. They're quiet, which is more than Bucky can say for Jones and Dernier.

One too-warm night, half the guys are washing in the nearby creek and the other half are scattered around Morita as he reads from _The Big Sleep_. Bucky's clean and if he has to hear any more of Raymond Chandler's prose, he'll pick up his rifle, so he steps over Dum Dum and heads to the big sleeping tent, toward his bedroll and some shut-eye.

Agent Carter steps out of her tent as he passes. "Sergeant Barnes, may I speak with you for a moment?" Her voice is light, crisp, with that BBC accent, her tone indecipherable. Bucky wouldn't bet against her at poker.

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and follows her back in.

Steve is sitting in a camp chair next to Agent Carter's low cot, reading a book. He glances up at Bucky just as Agent Carter puts her hand on Bucky's arm and says, "Call me Peggy. I never thanked you for the stockings."

"No need for thanks." Bucky can feel the heat of her body like a line up his side, but his eyes are still fixed on Steve. "Steve would've done the same, if he had enough blood left in his brain for it."

In that same cool tone, Peggy says, "He wasn't thinking with his dick. Just his usual noble, martyred spirit."

"Oh, yeah," Buck says knowingly. "That's always getting him into trouble."

Steve rolls his eyes. "You two gonna gang up on me now, huh?"

"You'd like that," says Peggy as she steps forward, her arm brushing Bucky's. "You'd do just about anything for us, wouldn't you?"

Bucky's getting that feeling again, like he's intruding on some private exchange. He says, "'Us,' huh," ready to pack it in for the night, until Peggy turns toward him, face oddly flushed.

"You'd do anything for him," she says. "Even for me."

"They're just stockings," Bucky says.

Steve says, "You won them off _Howard Stark_."

There's a long, quiet moment before Peggy kicks off one of her low-heeled pumps, then the other. Her stockinged feet are loose on the tarp she's using for a rug. She could be a leg model, like one of those ladies in the advertisements, sheer nylon casing her shapely calves and narrowing at the ankle to high-arched feet cupped by the reinforced heel and toe. Bucky's peeled the stockings off half a dozen girls, unsnapped the garters and left the stockings on for another half-dozen, but they've never been more than an afterthought to him before. Girls wear hose, and Bucky likes girls, and he likes getting them undressed and giving them the time of their lives. Or he did, before the war.

Bucky doesn't know if he wants to get Peggy undressed. He's a little afraid that if she takes off her blouse, she'll reveal some kind of marble Venus de Milo that can only be warmed by Steve's supercharged furnace. It was one thing to be a voyeur when they didn't know he was watching, to protect their privacy, to keep watch; it's another to see them performing for him as if he's an audience. Peggy stands over Steve, stokes his cheek for a moment. Then she bends down to whisper something in his ear.

"Come over here, Bucky," Steve says. And Bucky goes, because Peggy is right—he'll do anything for Steve. Always has, always will. He advances until he's standing in front of Steve at attention. Like this, Steve is shorter, the way it was for most of their lives, back when Bucky was mostly protecting Steve from himself. Bucky lets Steve draw him down, draw him closer, eyes drifting shut as he goes. Even though he knows it's coming, he trembles when Steve kisses him, when Peggy puts her hand on the nape of his neck. Bucky's not supposed to want this, let alone—have it. Have Steve put his hands on Bucky's shoulders to steady him while Peggy runs one of hers down his back, gentle and soothing. The kiss seems to go on forever, warm and close-mouthed and earthshaking. Bucky gasps for breath when they pull apart, blinks into Steve's bright eyes.

Peggy says, "May I kiss you, too?"

"Seems fair," says Bucky, rising and turning towards her.

Where Steve was gentle and tentative, Peggy is aggressive: she plants her victory-red lips on his and kisses until Bucky's mouth opens and his knees go weak. They're flanking him now, Steve's fingers rucking up Bucky's shirt where it's tucked into his pants, Peggy's hands digging into his shoulders. She kisses like she's going to take him apart. Maybe she will. Maybe they both will. If anyone's getting ganged up on here, it's—not Steve.

Steve tugs at Bucky's waist until he tips back into Steve's lap. "I wanted to thank you, too," Steve says into his ear. "Not for—the stockings. For being here. For coming back to me."

"Always will," Bucky promises. He can hardly think like this, with Peggy's thumbs working circles against his collarbones and Steve's fingers teasing at the waistband of Bucky's pants. With Steve's dick pressed against his ass. "You're gonna be the death of me, though, if you don't—"

"Whatever you want," says Steve.

Peggy unfastens Bucky's belt, and the buckle makes a clinking sound as it falls to rest on his thigh. He's half-hard, still working up to this, whatever it is, Steve breathing hot on his neck and pressing a kiss to his throat, Peggy neatly undoing the buttons on his pants. They're both still fully clothed, mostly composed; Bucky's the one who's turning into a shuddering mess. Peggy's just tugging his pants down his hips when Bucky says, "Why me?"

He means—why isn't this for _you_ , you're the star and stripes of this play, and I'm just—but Peggy takes his jaw in her hand and shuts his mouth. "Do you want us?"

Bucky nods. Steve slips his hand lower, down and—Jesus. He tips back his head against Steve's broad shoulders and gasps. Steve pushes down Bucky's briefs, wraps his spit-slick fingers around Bucky's dick, and Bucky can't breath. Funny how that works, how they've traded—and then Peggy bends down, puts her lips on his, twines her fingers with Steve's. Around Bucky's dick. They're both jerking him off, perfectly in sequence, and this isn't the kind of rushed hand job that guys in the main tent fumble through before passing out on their bedrolls—this is slow, sure, like the three of them have all the time in the world. Is this how Peggy touches Steve? Is this how they touch each other, how—

—and Bucky comes just like that, into Steve's cupped palm with Peggy's thumb teasing beneath the head of his dick as she strokes up with the rest of her fingers. They keep going until he's too sensitive and has to push them away, turning his face against Steve's shoulder. Bucky closes his eyes while Peggy wipes him down, cleans off Steve's hand and her own. This is too much; it's not enough.

"Hey, why the glum face?" Steve says, prodding Bucky upright. "We've got all night, you know."

"Maybe I'll let you see just how high these stockings go," Peggy says.

Bucky shifts on Steve's lap, turns to see his stupid earnest face. Familiar, safe, even at night in a French forest in the middle of a war. There are more ambitious things than throwing down with Howard Stark that Bucky would do for Steve, and some of them definitely involve Steve's dick. Bucky glances back to Peggy and says, "Oh, _maybe_."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] So While You're Here In My Arms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5667916) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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